There’s been a lot of weaving going on and thankfully a lot of restful holiday fun too.
The good news is that the Sunsets and Showers Collection is now ready and available to drift off to new homes.
As you may remember the inspiration of the collection came from my winter walks along the beach and from the stunning winter sunsets outside my house in West Kilbride.
The photos that were taken on these occasions have been used to create these scarves and you can see how below.
Sunsets
The Sunset Scarves and Cowl above were based on the images of the evening sky during last winter’s stunning sunsets. I’ve had a play with the colour and texture in the scarves and I’m trying to show the transition over the space of an hour of how the colours shift in the sky from blues to purples to bright yellows hanging onto the horizon before the sun sets. I’ve also had a play with using plain weave and then using texture to try and show the clouds against the colours of the sky. Both scarves are woven using 100% Falklands merino hand-dyed by my friend and local dyer Lilith at Old Maiden Aunt Yarns. This merino is so soft and feels almost silky to the touch. The cowl is woven in plain weave, but using a slightly chunkier 100% Blue-faced Leicester woollen yarn again hand-dyed by Old Maiden Aunt. I have to say I do love this cowl as the yellow stripe in it is so strong and bold against the pinks and purples. I’m not a yellow person but this is starting to make me think maybe I could be a little bit.
Showers
The Showers scarves are based on the swift showers that blew onto the beach whilst I was walking the weaving assistant in the morning. The dramatic change in the light and the texture in the cloud were just asking to be woven and I couldn’t wait to do just that. The first showers image was always going to be a simple stripe pattern but I wanted to add in a little design detail to convey the rain coming in from the sea. This has turned into a regular repeat in the two scarves and give a subtle effect of a quick change in the weather. Both of these scarves were woven using Old Maiden Aunts 80% Falklands merino and 20% Bamboo hand-dyed yarn that is again very soft to the touch and drapes beautifully. The cowl in this part of the collection in woven simply using the colours from the sky, clouds and beach and is woven using Old Maiden Aunts 100% Blue-faced Leicester yarn.
The second showers image was of rapidly building cumulus clouds that quickly gave way to rain pouring from them. Again I wanted to try and get a feel of the change from rain to dry in the scarf but as try and get the texture of the clouds, so this time used a random pattern in the cloth to get the shift in the clouds over the sea and beach. This scarf is woven using Old Maiden Aunts 100% Falklands Merino with it’s silky smooth feel to give that touch of luxury.
This is the first of the collection ready for sale and there will be more soon as I aim to have cowls and scarves for each of the images, and possibly more variations as I can’t stop playing about with patterns and textures.
You can buy the ones featured in this post now from my online shop and in the studio. I will also be at the Galloway Country Fair on 22-23 August with this new collection and all my other handwoven textiles.
If you want a scarf or cowl like this but slightly different then I am open to commissions so just get in touch.
Do please let me know what you think of these and I will be back soon with some more designs that I have been working on as well as another project involving geological timescales.